Some fool in the Hudson River at 5 p.m. Photo by Alexandra Glorioso for South Brooklyn Post.

Hurricane Sandy is beginning its onslaught of Manhattan. Battery Park’s benches are barely visible as the storm surge combines with the tide to flood the seawall. As the storm picks up velocity, the meteorologists have changed it from a hurricane to calling it, dramatically, a “superstorm.” See the New York Times’ live updates for full storm affects.

At 4:39 p.m., on the approach to Battery Park, cab driver Md Hasibul Islam was worried about taking streets lined with trees. He has been living in Woodside, Queens for 16 years but planned to stay in Manhattan for as long as possible on Monday. He had never seen a storm like this, and said he “was out for the new experience.”

He said that at 8 a.m. Monday morning, there were 40 percent of the normal amount of cabs on the road. By 4:30 p.m., he said there was something like five percent of the usual, and he predicted there would be few cabs after 7 p.m.

Photo by Alexandra Glorioso

By 5:10 p.m. in Battery Park, the water spilled over the lower seawall with each wave. The wind howled through the new World Trade Center’s open windows.

Mark Giordano, 26, who moved to New York City from Connecticut in March to work for a hedge fund, was hanging out illegally in Battery Park, as it lay in a mandatory evacuation zone. Giordana said he found his way through a running path he normally takes in the area. He said he was “looking forward to the storm because [he] missed Hurricane Irene last year.”

Some fool in the Hudson River at 5 p.m. Photo by Alexandra Glorioso for South Brooklyn Post.

Photo by Alexandra Glorioso

Flooding at Battery Park. The East River, as well, ran up into Red Hook and Dumbo. Photo by Alexandra Glorioso

Photo by Alexandra Glorioso

Photo by Alexandra Glorioso

Photo by Alexandra Glorioso

Photo by Alexandra Glorioso

Police Discuss their next steps at 32 Broadway. Photo by Alexandra Glorioso for South Brooklyn Post.

Photo by Alexandra Glorioso

Giordano said he took precautions, stocking up on water, food, and Oreos. He said he would go near the water for 30 minutes max. He said he didn’t believe the storm was related to global warming.

Photo by Alexandra Glorioso

Meg Gottemoeller and her daughter Philippa, 26, live on Wall Street. Meg is from Ohio originally and Philippa was born in New York City. Meg said the only comparable storm she had seen to this was a snow storm in 1984. She and her daughter had come down to Battery Park because they were skeptical of the media hype, but after seeing the water rise over the seawall, they decided it was time to go home. Meg works for an economic research organization and Philippa is a freelance stylist. Both are convinced the storm is due to global warming.

The water reached the first step by 6 p.m. Journalists were told to evacuate the area by 6:30 p.m.

Police Discuss their next steps at 32 Broadway. Photo by Alexandra Glorioso for South Brooklyn Post.

By 7 p.m. the streets of Manhattan were desolate. The only souls out were a few risk-taking pedestrians, doormen standing post outside banks, policemen, and the even more-rare cabby picking up lone passengers, even though his lights said “Off Duty.”